Alphabet Cities
by nyssa123
Summary: Take Phil Coulson and Clint Barton. Add one part sexual tension and one part snappy banter. Mix in travel writing and the alphabet. Liberally sprinkle with angst and fluff. Stir. A series of one-shots, each focusing on Phil and Clint's relationship over the course of their travels for SHIELD.
1. Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

It's hot. Really freaking hot. Clint's spent the last twelve hours perched on a roof, staring down the scope of a rifle, sweltering under Kevlar and nylon and waiting for a target that never showed up. The dusty plaza he's surveying is empty, the cracked ground hazy with moonlight and streetlamps. He's overheated, covered in sand, and probably smells like an armpit (His deodorant's claims to be an antiperspirant were blatant lies).

He's starting to regret ever accepting the offer to work for a shady government agency.

"Barton, report."

He rolls stiff shoulders and presses a finger to the tiny, state-of-the-art comm. in his left ear. "I got nothing, sir. I think the bastard's a no-show."

Coulson sighs down the line. He must be just as tired of this as Clint is; being stuck staring at a computer screen in their cramped, sorry excuse for a safehouse isn't much better than being up on the roof. "I'm calling it. We'll have to go after him tomorrow."

Clint checks his watch. The digital numbers blink back at him, 2:14 AM. "I hate to break it to you, sir, but tomorrow's already here."

"Just get back inside, agent." Coulson's eye-roll is practically audible.

"Sir, yes sir."

The pieces of the rifle come apart easily, smooth and silent under Clint's hands as he disassembles the carefully oiled metal and slides it into the waiting briefcase. From there it's just a matter of shimmying down the fire escape, crawling along some brick ledges, and tapping at the third window he comes to. The curtain draws back and his handler's face pops into view, blank and solid as ever. He slides the window open and Clint maneuvers himself over the sill, catching the threadbare red fabric of the drapes to steady himself. It's been a few hours since he's had anything to eat. A year ago, that wouldn't have been a problem- a year ago Clint was eating every other day, and then only what he could scrounge from dumpsters- but he's spent the last twelve months letting SHIELD's crack team of nutritionists feed him protein bars and vitamin shakes in an effort to bulk up his skinny frame. After the initial week and a half of puking while his stomach adjusted, he'd re-discovered his affinity for nachos. Ever since, hunger has turned from an ever-present gnawing to a thing that bothers him sometimes. It's been a weird transition.

Coulson backs off to sit on the couch that takes up about three quarters of what passes for a living room. The low table in front of him is covered in laptops, wires, and half-drunk mugs of coffee. Even with the portable air conditioner whirring from a haphazard angle in the corner, it's still swelteringly humid. The Abu Dhabi night isn't as hot as the Abu Dhabi day, but the air feels like it's heavy, weighing down on everything and everyone. Coulson's got his jacket folded neatly over the back of the sofa (Of course) but his tie is loose, and the sleeves of his once-crisp, now wilted white shirt are rolled up to expose forearms muscled from filling out forms and karate-chopping HYDRA mooks. If Clint stares a little, he blames it on the lack of sleep.

"You should take a shower," Coulson says, not taking his eyes off the screens. Clint can see the blue light reflecting off his eyes. "We'll be in the car for four hours on the way to Sharjah. There's shampoo on the shelf."

Clint slinks into the bathroom, toeing off his boots and socks. The floor is slippery under his bare feet, and as he peels his shirt and bullet-proof vest over his head he allows himself a yawn.

The spray is cold on his back, and the water washing down the drain is a diluted red-brown. He isn't sure whether it's from the filth sluicing off his skin or if it came out of the tap that way. He doesn't really care. He can feel his muscles start to relax and unknot, and he presses his forehead to the slick, cool tiled wall with a groan of relief. The long day's tension is still coiled in his shoulders, in the pit of his stomach, and almost without thinking he reaches down to wrap a hand around his cock. He doesn't think of anything as he strokes himself; just falls into the steady, monotonous bliss of fingers over flesh. His nerves spark, really alive for the first time in hours, and he spills over his loose fist with a sigh.

He's blinking through the aftershocks when he notices a blurry shape outside the shower curtain. He tenses, tired body dropping into fight mode, but the figure doesn't come any nearer. It just stands, still, a haze of black and white.

Coulson carefully closes the bathroom door, and Clint is too exhausted to be embarrassed.


	2. Belfast, Ireland

**Belfast, Northern Ireland**

Clint stumbles through the rain-soaked streets of Belfast with one arm curled around Coulson's shoulders and blood leaking out from under his jacket. They stick to side streets and alleys, navigating the tangled map of cobbles and asphalt with the grey sky above pounding on their heads. Phil's hand is pressed to Clint's side, the pressure on the bullet wound making Clint's vision white out with every step he takes. A cab speeds by them and Phil shouts, but it keeps going down the wet street. Clint sags in his handler's grip and starts to laugh.


	3. Cherbourg, France

**Cherbourg, France**

Cherbourg is beautiful in the spring. Clint had seen a movie about it once, when he was eighteen, ducking into a theatre to avoid some cops with a stolen transistor radio hidden in the folds of his coat. There had been a glowing French girl and her lover spinning around in glorious Technicolor- something about umbrellas. He hadn't been focusing much on the subtitles- he was too busy being scared out of his mind that he would get caught.

He sits next to Coulson in the rental car and grins out the window as the sea rolls past. Coulson's put some big band music on the car's CD player and they've got the top down, and Clint can almost forget that they've come here to kill someone. And even then, this time at least there had been a full story in the file- a drug dealer, trafficking, mob connections. It felt better to know that the target they were sent to terminate had it coming. Sometimes, all Clint found in the file was a photo, a name, and an address. That was the worst. Not knowing was the worst.

Clint glances over to Coulson. "Are we almost there?"

"Only a few more minutes."

Clint feels almost disappointed. It's been a helluva drive from the airport to their destination, and he wishes it could last a little longer. The air smells like sunflowers and saltwater. "Oh."

A quarter of an hour later Coulson is pulling the rental onto the side of the road. Clint gathers up his briefcase from the back seat and fishes the comm. out of his pocket, screwing it into his ear. Coulson does the same.

"Right. You have the address?"

Clint rolls his eyes. "You know I do."

Coulson nearly smiles at that. "Okay then. Let's get this show on the road."

Clint jogs the few blocks it takes to get to the street mentioned in his briefing. The door pushes open easily- unlocked- and Clint slips inside, darting up the narrow staircase with a sideways look at his watch. If everything goes according to plan, they should be in and out in less than ten minutes.

It's two thirty-three in the afternoon as Clint reaches the right room. The target should be in sight at two thirty-seven. Clint and Phil should be in the car again by two thirty-nine.

The rifle comes together easily in his hands, perching on the windowsill, and Clint thinks wistfully of his bow. SHIELD frowns on "Robin Hood-heroics," as one trainer had sneeringly referred to them, and he hasn't touched an arrow in the field in months. It's depressing. Clint doesn't really like guns.

But. Beggars can't be choosers.

"This is Coulson, checking in. It is 1433 hours. Report."

"Hawkeye, calling in. Destination reached. Am in position."

"Copy that."

Clint can see where he'll be shooting. Across the street a white-washed window frames his view, narrowing it down to a blue carpet, a few inches of sofa in the background. Pale, light curtains drift in the breeze. Clint shifts, getting comfortable. "How's it down there, Coulson? Any sign?"

Coulson is waiting at ground level, sitting at a café and watching for their target to arrive. To anyone watching _him_, he looks like he's talking into a cellphone. High up, Clint can just see him from the corner of his eye. "None yet. Good coffee, though."

"Get me some to go, would you? My throat's like a desert. I won't be able to talk soon."

"Then I'm definitely not getting you any." Only someone with Clint's eyesight could catch Coulson's smirk and still stay focused on the window across the way. He smiles back, though there's no way his handler will see it.

"Have it your way, sir."

A blue luxury sedan pulls up to the curb. A few seconds later, Coulson breaks the silence. "Target sighted. Moving up to you."

"Copy that." Clint lowers his head to peer down the sight of the rifle. The window across the street is magnified until it fills his vision, just those curtains and the blue carpet. At exactly two thirty-seven the door across the street opens and the man in the photograph comes in, beaming in a dark navy suit, his red hair slicked down. He lets out a cry, grinning, and a small figure comes running forward from outside Clint's frame. The child wraps tiny arms around his father's waist and Clint falters, finger hovering over the trigger.

"Hawkeye," Coulson's voice is tinged with urgency and frustration. "Hawkeye, take the shot."

Clint is frozen.

"Barton!" Coulson hisses. "We're running out of time!"

Clint's finger squeezes, almost involuntarily. It's like a reflex. One quick twitch, and there is a scream, and red splatters onto the curtains.

The pieces of the rifle are in the case and Clint is down the stairs before he can think. He leaves through the same back door he entered, hearing the frantic yelling and sobs from the open window over the street as if from underwater. Coulson grabs his arm and Clint looks up, startled. He hadn't even seen him leave the café. Coulson rushes them towards the car. "Come on, Barton. Come on."

Clint straps himself into his seat automatically and stares back at the panicking street as Coulson starts the engine. They drive away nearly soundlessly, the expensive engine purring as they speed out of the city limits.

"There was a kid," Clint mutters, when they're about a mile away. Coulson glances at him sharply.

"There was?"

Clint nods. It's still sort of hard to get the words out. He's killed before- he's killed a lot of people, in fact- and he's known that some of them had children. But he's never-

He's never seen one of them. Not like that.

Out of the corner of his eye he can see Coulson's knuckles whitening on the steering wheel. "That wasn't in the file." There's a pause. "I'm sorry. If I'd known…"

"It's okay," Clint runs a hand through his hair, taking a deep breath. "I understand." It takes a long moment to gather his thoughts. To get his head screwed on straight. "It's okay," he repeats.

They drive in silence. After a while, Coulson glances over sheepishly. "I got you a coffee," He says, apologetic. "It's probably cold by now."

Clint looks down at the white cardboard in the cup rest between them. He looks up at Coulson. "Thanks." He takes a sip.

It's lukewarm, but Coulson's right. It's a damn good cup of coffee.


	4. Da Nang, Vietnam

**Da Nang, Vietnam**

They make a silent promise, lying in side-by-side beds in the SHIELD med bay, to never talk about Da Nang. But every once in a while, in years to come, Clint will brush his fingers over the shiny pink scar on the back of Phil's neck, where the skin graft sits like a patch sewn onto a pair of fading jeans. Every once in a while Clint lets Phil sit him down on the bed, pull up his shirt, and skim his palm over the words carved under Clint's ribs.

Each, without the other's knowledge, puts in a request to Director Fury that the other never be sent to Vietnam again.


	5. Eureka, Canada

**Eureka, Canada**

Clint thinks it's pretty funny that the first time it happened was in a place called "Eureka." I mean, it's appropriate. Realizations and everything.

There's no sun. The research base is abandoned, and they were lucky Coulson found enough scrap wood to start a fire. Both of them are smoldering from the mission gone pear-shaped, angry at each other and at stupid booby-trapped HYDRA barracks in the ass-end of nowhere. Angry at the freezing arctic night. The fire doesn't do much to warm them. So Coulson sits and pokes at the flames with a stick while Clint paces furiously, arms crossed over the chest of his parka.

He kicks a pile of debris. "Fuck!"

Coulson glances up through the wavering air above the fire. "Keep your cool, Barton."

"Keep my cool?" Clint scowls at him. "HYDRA got away in their goddamn helicopters, and that explosion took out any information we could have stolen. Every agent in that task force but us is dead. We're gonna freeze to death in the middle of the fuckin' Arctic, and you want me to keep my cool? That's a poor fuckin' word choice, Coulson."

Coulson glares. "Don't act like a child. Your having a hot-head temper tantrum isn't going to help us get out of here."

"Yeah, well at least I'm not ice cold like you!" Clint spits. He knows he's crossing a line but he can't stop himself. "Do you even care about the others? Could you tell which of them was screaming while they burned and which ones couldn't because they didn't have a tongue left to scream with? Did you even know their names? Did you-"

He hits the wall fast and hard, his head colliding with the concrete with a sickening crack. Coulson's arm presses against his throat, his other palm planted firmly beside Clint's ear. His breath is hot on Clint's face. His blue eyes flash and his normally composed expression contorts in anger.

"_Don't_." He hisses. "Don't you _dare_."

He releases him, taking an unsteady step back as Clint sinks to the floor. Coulson sits down heavily and stares into the fire, his back to Clint. For a long moment, there is no sound but the crackling of the burning wood and the wind of the Arctic tundra. Then, he starts to speak.

"Lang. Jackson. McKittrick. Rosen. Li. Sanders."

Clint stares as his handler repeats the list.

"Lang. Jackson. McKittrick. Rosen. Li. Sanders." He doesn't turn around. "Yes, Clint, I knew their names."

Clint hauls himself to his feet. When he settles next to Coulson, the other man still doesn't meet his eyes. "Shit, Coulson, I didn't mean it. I don't know why I even said it, it wasn't- I didn't mean it, Phil, I swear, I'm sorry."

He doesn't know why he kisses him. Or maybe he does, but he doesn't want to think about it. Either way, their lips touch, and they're going to die out here in the ice and snow, and Phil doesn't pull away.

They stay like that for a while, breathing in each other's air, eyes closed.

Then there's a loud thwacking noise overhead, and Clint blinks.

"Is that-?"

Coulson lets go of Clint's lapels and glances up. "I think it is."

They stumble outside to stare at the helicopter hovering over the abandoned research station where they've taken shelter. The SHIELD insignia glints on the side, even in the perpetual nighttime.

"How did they find us?" Clint wonders aloud.

Phil at least has the decency to look embarrassed. "There may or may not be an experimental tracking device implanted in my lower back."

"Are you serious?" Clint gapes. "Of course you're serious. You're always serious."

"To my credit, we didn't know if it would work or not. We were hoping we wouldn't ever need to use it." He shrugs. "I guess this was the test run."

Clint feels nauseous. "This wasn't… was this whole thing…" Engineered? Manufactured? Did six agents just die to test out a new piece of tech?

A look of horror crosses Phil's face for a second. "Jesus, no!" He reaches out a gloved hand as if to touch Clint, then pulls back. "No. Never. We would never do that."

"Okay." Clint nods shakily. "Okay. Can we go home now, sir?"

He watches as Coulson nods back, silver flakes of snow falling onto his upturned face. "Sure, Barton. We can go home now."

By the time they're sitting on the helicopter, wrapped in thermal blankets, they're back to "Barton" and "Coulson" and any mention of kissing is studiously avoided.


	6. Fargo, North Dakota, USA

**Fargo, United States**

It's not so cold in North Dakota as it was in Canada. Still, Coulson is wearing one of those furry hats with the flaps hanging over his ears, and it's pretty hard not to laugh at that.

"Hey, Marge, how're things up in Brainerd?" Clint quips as they trudge to the latest in a long line of rental cars. This one has four-wheel drive.

Coulson rolls his eyes. "One more Cohen Brothers reference and I'm suspending your range privileges."

Clint clutches his chest with one hand, looking offended. "That hurts, Coulson. I might have to spend the car ride silently sobbing into the night."

"Not really endearing yourself to my sympathy, Barton."

"Fine, no crying. But if I see you anywhere near a wood chipper I'm running. Just thought I should warn you."

"Duly noted. Get in the car."

The drive to the small town isn't very long, and the mission goes smoothly. Clint doesn't say anything, but he's overjoyed that this job doesn't involve killing anyone. He's even happier that he's finally got his bow back, though with some modifications. He fires off three arrows in rapid succession through the windows of a tech firm that was getting a little too close to figuring out SHIELD's security codes. The second they hit the computers they latch on and the mechanisms in the arrow heads shoot off an electromagnetic pulse that fries the everloving shit out of their hard drives. Tomorrow there are going to be some very upset people in that office.

Clint stalks out of the building across the street, boots crunching on the snowy sidewalk. He can see the dark outline of Coulson's profile in the car window, silhouetted under the sulfur orange light of the streetlamp. He's taken the stupid hat off. Clint smiles.

He taps on the side of the car and Coulson rolls down the window with one arched eyebrow. Clint grins. "Excuse me, sir, I'm going to need you to exit the vehicle."

"Funny. Get in, Barton." They're in no rush tonight- there's none of the urgency in Coulson's voice that usually comes with that command. It's dark, it's snowy, they're in Buttfuck Nowhere, North Dakota, and there's a box of donuts (Real ones, not those Hostess gas stop things) sitting on the dashboard, waiting to be opened on the drive back. Clint opens the passenger door and hums contentedly as the car's heat drags him into its warm little world.

"Damn, it's cozy in here," Clint rubs his hands in front of the vent and peels off his jacket. "You should totally talk Fury into making this the official car of SHIELD. We could sleep in this thing, man, who needs a hotel?"

Coulson smiles quietly as he shifts the car into gear. "Not everybody spent their seminal years sleeping in a circus trailer. Most of us prefer actual beds."

"I'll have you know that my trailer was extremely comfortable!" Clint reaches forward to grab a donut. "You want jelly or Boston cream?"

"Glazed."

Clint rolls his eyes. "Come on, boss! Glazed? Take chances! Live a life of adventure! At least try a powdered one!"

"Too messy."

"I still can't believe you wore a suit under a parka. What is that, Dolce? You fierce fashion fiend."

Coulson sighs. "If I eat a jelly one, will you stop talking?"

"I make no promises."

"Then give me a glazed donut."

Clint hands him one, and Coulson is so concentrated on the road ahead that he doesn't even realize it's filled with red raspberry goop until he takes a bite out of it. He glares over at the archer. The archer smiles innocently. Coulson turns his gaze back to driving and takes another bite.

They pull into the parking lot of their hotel at three in the morning. The box of donuts lies half-emptied on the dashboard, and Clint's discarded boots sit haphazardly on the floor, his legs curled up underneath him. Coulson kills the engine and they sit in the heavy warmth of the car.

"That went well," Coulson says, the _At least, it went better than the last one_ hanging, implied, in the air between them. They very pointedly haven't talked about what happened in Eureka. Clint nods.

Exactly two minutes later they're crowded on top of each other in the backseat. Clint groans into Phil's mouth and rubs against him from where he's half-straddling, half-lying on his lap. Phil jerks up to meet him, struggling to squirm out of his coat.

Clint shakes his head. "Stop, here, let me-" he fumbles at the buckle of Phil's belt.

"So, we're just going to-"

"Yeah, yeah, why the Hell not-"

"-Okay, just-"

"Fuck, Phil, wanted this for _months_-"

"Jesus, me too."

"Jesus has nothing to with it!"

Phil lets out a strained laugh and catches Clint's face in the palm of his hand, calloused fingers stroking over his cheek. "This is such a bad idea," He mutters, and kisses him hard.


	7. Granada, Spain

**Granada, Spain**

Spain is perfect. Every house is a different brilliant color, and the streets are rich brown clay. The city is vibrant and bustling and full of life. Women swish by in long, many-hued skirts, and the white noise of conversations and traffic and commerce floats above the buildings and the streets. The sky is pure, unadulterated blue.

Coulson is driving like a bat out of Hell.

A bullet zings in through the broken glass of the rear window, whizzing past dangerously close to his ear. In the back seat, Clint fires shots from the twin pistols clutched in his fists and curses in a continuous stream of creative swear words. The van following them through the winding roads is gaining speed.

Coulson swerves to avoid a gaggle of screeching pedestrians. Clint grunts as he falls back against the car door. He's up again in a flash, but when he pulls the trigger of his guns they click emptily and he shouts out a four-letter word that is illegal in seventeen separate countries. "Coulson! Get these guys off our tail!"

"What do you think I'm trying to do?" Phil snaps, maneuvering around a fruit stand. He takes the corner at 67 miles per hour. Their followers copy them, rising up on two wheels and then slamming back onto the road loudly. The few people who haven't scampered off the road already dive into the safety of the nearby buildings.

When Clint clambers into the front seat, he's got his bow in one hand and his arrows in the other. "I'm going through the sunroof."

"Is that a good idea?"

"Fuck no, but I'm gonna do it anyway." The archer yanks the high window open. "Don't make any crazy turns."

"No promises, Barton." Phil jolts in his seat as the other car rams into them. He presses his foot down harder on the accelerator. "Hurry up."

"Yes, sir." Clint hauls himself up so that just his legs are dangling through the sunroof, feet perched on the passenger seat. Phil listens absently as the stream of cursing picks up again, accompanied by loud "twang"-ing noises and the sudden squeal of the other car's brakes. The smell of burning rubber fills his nose; he hears a scream, and then a crash. Chancing a look over his shoulder, Phil sees the other car lying crumpled on the side of the road, half an arrow sticking out from the fractured glass of the windshield.

Ten seconds later, the other car explodes in a ball of flame.

Clint drops back down, wiping the sweat and dirt from his brow with the back of one broad hand. "Well. That went better than I expected it to."

"As that wasn't a Pinto, I'm going to guess R&D finally perfected that explosive arrow design. I'll be expecting you to file a report on them along with your usual debriefing. Understood?"

Clint rolls his eyes, but he's smiling. "Count on you to turn an awesome car chase into paperwork, boss."


	8. Hamburg, Germany

**Hamburg, Germany**

City lights glints off the water as Clint and Phil gaze out over the canal, leaning on the railed fence. Around them the _Speicherstadt_ works quietly, the noises of the surrounding factories muted in the background. Hamburg sparkles in the distance. Clint's briefcase lies at his feet and their comms, now removed from their ears, are nestled deep in Phil's pocket.

"We should tell someone." Phil says, eyes fixed on the water.

Clint frowns. "By 'someone' I'm guessing you mean SHIELD, not your parents."

Phil gives him a _look_. "It's been three months. I haven't seen my parents in three years, I'm hardly going to bring you over for dinner. And anyway, I already told my mother I was seeing someone over the phone last week." He sighs. "I'm not worried about my family. It's Fury I'm not so sure about. There _are_ frat regs, Clint."

"That's not a revelation. I did actually read the rule book when I joined, you know."

Phil raises an eyebrow. "So you just choose to ignore it, then? Why am I not surprised."

"You know me too well." A grin flickers over Clint's face as a barge's horn blares faintly, far away down the canal. "I don't see the problem. Ignoring the rules has been working out pretty well so far."

In the distance the wail of an ambulance echoes off the water, and Phil shakes his head. "What are we even doing, Clint?"

Clint looks at him. Worry is etched onto Phil's forehead even in the dark, and Clint wishes, not for the first time, that his handler wasn't so hung up on playing by the book. So he steels himself and cups a hand to the back of his neck, turning his face so that their eyes meet. "I don't know, Phil. What are we doing?"

They don't say much on the walk back to the hotel. But the minute the door of their shared suite locks behind them Clint drops to his knees and presses Phil back against the bed.

He fumbles with the belt but slides Phil's fly down with steady fingers, stroking over the bulge in his boxers with a warm palm. Phil stays silent, weaving his grip into the short hair at the back of Clint's head, tugging slightly. Through the fabric of Phil's boxers Clint's breath ghosts hot over his cock as he pulls back from the wet, open-mouthed kisses he plants on the black cotton. He jostles Phil forward for a second to slide his trousers and underwear down his thighs and then drifts in, almost reverently, to lick a stripe up the length of his hard cock, eyes half-closed beneath heavy lids. He teases at a thick vein with his clever tongue and smiles triumphantly when Phil can't quite stifle a moan.

He loves this: tasting Phil, seeing Phil, making Phil gasp. Taking him apart and putting him back together. Clint's done this a lot of times- being the lowest on the food chain at an all-boys orphanage isn't much better than being in prison; Clint's heard stories from guys who've done time and they match up eerily with memories of his adolescence. Then there had been the circus, and beautiful townie boys who'd sneak out back of the tent when the show was over to have some fun. Then after the circus, the street, and, well, he had to make money somehow. But he's never enjoyed it before, never been able to close his eyes and take his time. There's something different about it this way. The soft heft and girth of Phil on his tongue, the fingers stroking his scalp in time with the swirls of his tongue, the words of encouragement whispered, disjointed, when Phil is getting close- he actually _wants_ this, _likes_ this, and that's why _this whole thing_ is different.

He stands and spits into one hand, wrapping his wet palm around Phil's length and fisting the other in the soft silk of his tie to drag him in for a kiss. It's sloppy and deep and inelegant. Phil tastes like coffee and toothpaste and sleep, and Clint's mouth is all iron and spice and pre-cum. Their tongues slide against each other and they breathe through their noses as Clint pumps Phil with long, slow strokes.

"Fuck," Phil murmurs, burying his face in Clint's shoulder. His hips twitch forward as Clint twists his wrist, rubbing just right.

Then Clint is gone and Phil is left panting, half-bent over the bed and painfully hard. He blinks. Clint stands back, a few steps away, eyeing him like he can't quite understand how he got there. Studying his face.

He looks away, and the spell is broken. Clint reaches down to tug off his boots. Phil is out of his shoes in less than a second and starts to hastily undo the buttons on his shirt, but a hand on his stops him. When he looks up, Clint shakes his head and reaches down to tighten the knot on Phil's tie.

Oh.

He lets himself be pushed onto the bed by a strong hand on his chest, lets Clint maneuver him so that he's sprawled out on the sheets, half-dressed, flushed and hazy. The archer tugs his own t-shirt off, tossing it into the corner of the hotel room before settling down and gently pulling Phil's legs apart to nestle between his thighs. He grabs the tie, fingers caressing silk, and brings Phil forward for a kiss filthy with promise.

It's deep and perfect, and even though Clint is on top and technically in control it feels like he's falling into Phil and drowning. It's not a wholly unpleasant sensation.

They break apart and he hefts one of Phil's legs up over his shoulder, stretching his thighs further away from each other. Phil exhales heavily through his nose, eyes screwed shut as his hard cock bobs against the flat of his stomach, leaking against his pale skin. Clint groans, mouth starting to water, and leans down to mouth at the soft juncture of Phil's thigh. He noses at the scruff of hair that darkens the base of Phil's cock and inhales the clean musk of his scent.

He strokes Phil's balls with just the tips of his fingers until the older man is panting, hips rolling in lazy twitches against the sheets. Clint rests his cheek against Phil's thigh and slides his hand up to tease at the underside of his shaft. He's painfully hard himself, the stretch of his cock distorting the front of his pants obscenely, but he pushes it away to focus on Phil. He looks utterly debauched, blue eyes hooded, lips glistening, chest rising and falling under his rumpled shirt. The striped tie lies twisted on the pillow by his head and his cheeks are flushed, dusted with pink.

"What are we doing, Phil?" Clint wraps a fist around Phil's cock and drags it up his length torturously slow. It earns him a muffled groan. "You tell me, babe. What are we doing? What do you _want_ to do? Because I want you to be happy, Phil, that's all I want. I want to sit here every night and watch you like this." He teases a finger over the slit of Phil's cock. "I want you to think about what you want, not what I want, or what SHIELD wants, or what everyone else wants. I want you to just fuck the rules for once, Phil." A drop of pre-come shivers on the tip of Phil's cock and slide down, shining in the low light of the hotel's lamps. "Just fuck 'em, okay?"

"Okay," Phil gasps, and comes, shuddering, over Clint's fist.

They spend a long time kissing, after that.

The next morning, Director Fury calls Clint's cell phone and leaves him a terse message about, "Not fucking things up", "Good eyes," and something that sounds suspiciously like, "If you hurt him I will break you." It is the most terrifying voicemail Clint will ever receive in his entire life.


	9. Inishmore, Ireland

**Inishmore, Ireland**

The Inishmore mission isn't particularly interesting on its' own. The target comes on the same ferry that Clint and Coulson are on, and he's dead before they reach the island. Coulson stands on the deck of the boat, staring out at the grey sea and the bobbing black heads of seals. Clint comes up from the lower levels, running one hand up the smooth railing and watching Coulson from the back as he pulls his windbreaker tighter around him. Even wearing heavy, worn combat boots, Clint's tread is soft. Most people wouldn't be able to hear him coming.

So of course Coulson turns around and hands him the thermos of coffee long before he plans to announce his presence. "All good?"

"Yup," There had been no point in wearing comms for this mission; the roar of the engine renders nearly everything too quiet. Even up on the deck they practically have to shout to be heard. Clint moves closer, cupping one hand at the back of Coulson's neck to speak into the shell of his ear. His voice is louder, clear.

"Target terminated. How's it going up here?"

"No disturbances. I'll call it when we hit land." He murmurs back, resting his palm on Clint's hip. He can feel the archer smile into the curve of his neck, where his scarf gives way to skin.

"Is this part of our cover, sir?" Clint mutters, balancing the half-full thermos in one hand.

"It could be."

Clint pulls back with a grin. "I think you're trying to seduce me, Agent Coulson."


	10. Jersey City, USA

**Jersey City, USA**

They get out of New York for one night, because while they both want to get as far away from work as possible they also don't want to risk being _too_far away if they get called in on a last-minute op. So they end up driving half an hour away to settle down in an old movie theatre across the river, popcorn in their laps and Phil dressed down to slacks and rolled-up sleeves, his jacket and tie left in the car.

It's the closest to an actual date they've gotten, and they've been enjoying mutual handjobs, blowjobs, and general messing around for about three months at this point.

Afterwards, Clint wouldn't be able to tell you what film they went to see (though Phil remembers, in great detail, because that's how Phil works). When you spend the entire movie staring at your date instead of at the screen, things like plot, and characters, and the title of the movie tend to fall by the wayside.


	11. Karachi, Pakistan

**Karachi, Pakistan**

It's Monsoon season, and Clint and Phil are stuck in the safe house. The mission has been postponed until Clint can climb to his perch without nearly drowning. It's the first time he's had to deal with rain in the Middle East, and spending all day cooped up in a tiny three room apartment while the outside world floods isn't normally his idea of a good time. It isn't exactly Phil's idea of fun, either.

Normally.

"Oh my God, do that again!" Clint bucks his hips and gasps into the pillow. Phil smiles against the bare skin of the archer's back.

"Say please."

Clint chokes on something halfway between a laugh and a sob. "Please, Phil, please, that's not _fair_, come _on_-!"

Phil soothes a hand down Clint's spine. It's hot under his palm, sweat-slick and taut in the glow of the flickering lights from outside. They don't often get to take their time like this; on missions they implement a plan of _wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am _(or sir, whatever, terminology has never been Clint's strong suit), with frantic hand jobs pressed up against walls or a few stolen fumblings in between stakeouts.

But this… this is nice. This is rare. It's a novelty to be together in a real bed, being able to go slow, to make it last. Not that Clint's going to be lasting much longer if Phil keeps this up.

"Oh, fuck!" He cries out as Phil jolts into him with a particularly hard thrust, hips snapping against Clint's ass. He curls his fingers into the sheets and babbles incoherently as Phil pushes in and out, grazing over _just the right spot_ with every press of his body, finding the perfect angle and sticking to it with the focused determination that makes him the best at what he does.

One strong hand covers Clint's mouth and his eyes nearly roll back in his head at the feel of the calloused palm over his parted lips and the tip of his tongue. "Shhh," Phil whispers in his ear, "We don't want the neighbors to hear."

That's the one downside of doing this on a mission in a country not world-renowned for their tolerance of homosexuality. Normally, Clint would be annoyed. But Phil's hand moves down to cup his jaw, and then to grip loosely at his throat, thumb pressing into his pulse point to feel the throb of his heartbeat. Suddenly the only sounds Clint can make are muted, breathless gasps, and he feels lightheaded as Phil slams into him again, one hand on his throat, the other teasing at the slit of his cock. His arms tremble, muscles chording and rippling with tension as he comes into

Phil's palm, white streaking out across his fingers as he clenches around Phil's cock. He feels like he's burning, from the tingling soles of his feet to the backs of his eyelids.

By the time he comes back to himself he's lying on his stomach in a rapidly cooling wet spot, the back of his thighs slick. He halfheartedly wipes at them with one corner of the sheets and then gives up, rolling over and wrapping Phil up in his grip, slipping one arm over his chest. Clint is an aggressive spooner. "Why are you invading my side of the bed?" Phil complains groggily, threading his fingers through Clint's.

"My side's all moist and damp and stuff. I'm not gonna sleep on that."

"I thought _I_ was supposed to be the neat freak." Phil murmurs, smiling with his eyes closed.

Clint tightens his grip, clinging. He can feel the finger-shaped bruises on his hips from earlier starting to darken. It's good. Purple is his favorite color. "It's a clever ruse," he buries his face in Phil's shoulder, "I'm actually an organizational maniac, and you're a slob. It's all a plot by aliens."

Phil groans. "No aliens. Don't bring work into this."

"Mmmkay." Clint hums. A few minutes later, he lifts his head. "Hey, Phil?"

He gets a soft snore in response. Clint closes his eyes again and drifts off to sleep, the rain of the monsoons tapping out a drumbeat on the roof above them.


	12. Los Angeles, USA

**Los Angeles, USA**

Phil is on a three day mission to convince a California businessman that no, the thing that had taken up residence in his swimming pool was not a mermaid. It's not a lie, actually. Mermaids aren't the product of super-secret labs in San Francisco, and they don't swim/crawl up the coast to make a new home in a chlorine-filled suburb. The… monkey-fish-thing that a handful of unlucky junior agents had to fish out of the pool was no mythical creature. It was, however, a pain in the ass to deal with, and Phil eyes the stack of paperwork on the dashboard of his car with trepidation. It's not that he doesn't want to do the work, filling out forms and scribbling his signature on dotted lines that wear huge paragraphs of tiny text like hats. Paperwork has never been a problem for him. Even when he was in school, he always had his work in on time, was always the first one to hand in his test. But he's been in L.A. for a week. And he's exhausted. And his eyeglasses are sitting on the bedside table in Clint's bunk back at SHIELD HQ in New York, because the call came in at 2 AM and he had to leave in a rush, tugging his pants on while Clint watched from the twin bed, head propped up on one hand and hair mussed from sleep.

He squints at the first form on the pile, pinches the bridge of his nose, and gets out of the car.

_I give up_, he thinks, trudging through the sunny street. A Starbucks looms in his vision like the Emerald City. _I need coffee._

The door pushes open with an electronic bell noise, and Phil closes his eyes for a second to soak in the soft glow of muted indie rock on the speakers and the smell of double-cinnamon-whipped-cream-grande-frappuchinos.

It's as close to paradise as he can get without dying or seeing Clint naked. He gets in line and waits, settling into the blissful scent of coffee. _Coffee_. Manna from heaven. Food of the Gods. Perfection. It's like the day has instantly improved tenfold.

And then a shiny red Audi screeches to a stop at the curb out front, and Phil gets a sudden feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach. He's got a sixth sense for this sort of thing- it's what makes him such a good agent. And right now, his radar is going off like crazy.

_Well, shit_.

The man who gets out of the Audi is short and flashy, wearing thousand dollar sunglasses, a sweater that probably costs what Phil makes in a year, and a million-watt grin full of teeth. He swaggers through the front door, takes one look at the line, and claps his hands.

"I'm buying this place. Everyone who is waiting for a coffee is going to have to wait longer- as the new owner, I get priority, and I need a triple mochachino STAT!"

Years later, when Tony Stark shows up in a metal suit in the middle of the desert and declares himself a superhero on national television, Phil grits his teeth and hops on a plane to Los Angeles, knowing nothing good can come of billionaire playboys and their games.


End file.
